Like it or not, football is a business. Players that are dear to a club’s fanbase get sold whenever there is a profit good enough to break that bond. Real Madrid have done it a few times, and it’s understandable.
But, Real Madrid’s Castilla is a place which is rarely talked about as the world’s best academy for players. It’s not talked about as much just because there aren’t a lot of players from that academy that actually play for Real’s first team. Well, Nacho and Dani Carvajal are good examples of homegrown talent, but that doesn’t mean Real only have two or three good players that came out of Castilla.
In fact, the academy is fantastic, because it’s brought a lot of money to Real Madrid via sales. Real Madrid, according to AS, made a whopping 365 million euros from Castilla sales alone since 2009. You don’t get that sort of money unless the academy is actually good, and this one? It’s one of the best ones out there.
Achraf Hakimi, Marcos Llorente and Sergio Reguilon are just some of the players that played for Castilla
365 million euros is a lot of money. Think about how much was invested in these players, and how much profit the club made off their sales. That’s when you realise how much 369 million euros truly is, because we see huge transfers every day now.
We’ve seen players like Neymar go for 222 million euros, so it’s not uncommon to disregard this fee that has been cumulated in over 13 years, but not all players go on to become superstars, and still, Real Madrid were able to make a lot of profit on the players they sold.
Obviously, it’s like, you win some and you lose some, but the ones they won made them a lot of money. That’s all I would say.
There are a number of players that were Castilla graduates and are now playing for top clubs, like the ones I just mentioned. Alvaro Morata also was an academy graduate, and Jese Rodriguez was also sold to PSG for a big amount of money.
Want your voice heard? Join the The Real Champs team!
It’s just sales like these that make you think just how massive the academy is, and how many great players have come out of it. Obviously, Jese wasn’t as good as the others, but he still made the club some money, and in the end, isn’t that what truly matters here?